Building a library

When choosing a CD for your library the the selections on the disc, and the fidelity presented, must be the best available.

To begin your collection, we suggest you get discs of Di Sarli, D'Arienzo, Pugliese and Troilo.

No longer available as a set

RCA Victor 100 Años - Carlos Di Sarli

BMG 87490

For years the Di Sarli disc we all wanted was the Instrumental disc on FM Tango,
which collected many of the great instrumentals from Di Sarli's late period,
tangos which we adore for their spaciousness, for the sweeping sensuality of their strings,
for the compás stretched further than others had thought possible.
That disc, and it's reprint on Solo Tango, are long gone.
But there is now an even better alternative: this disc on RCA Victor 100 Años series.
The transfers on this CD are taken not from 78s or LP reissues but from the original masters in the RCA vaults.
They are immaculate - this CD sounds as though it was recorded last week.
The best selling tango CD in the UK.

our price: £12

Track list

Bahía Blanca

Milonguero viejo

Rodríguez Peña

Buenos Aires

La cumparsita

La morocha

Don Juan

A la gran muñeca

Fumando Espero

Comme il faut

9 puntos

El ingeniero

El once

Verdemar

Germaine

El jagüel

El amanecer

Nido gaucho

Organito de la tarde

Cara sucia

Viviani

Palabras de Carlos Di Sarli - El choclo

Osvaldo Pugliese - Ausencia

EMI 835886

If D'Arienzo excites us, then it is Pugliese who moves us, who makes us tremble with emotion.
Pugliese took the musical invention of De Caro and clothed it in humanity.
The recordings he gave us so generously stand today as testament to a great human being
and one of the greatest musical geniuses of the twentieth century.

Pugliese was a communist who ran his orchestra as a collective, with the income spilt equally amongst its members.
In one famous incident he visited the striking workers at the Ford factory and embraced them.
These tendencies were not popular with the authorities and he was at times blacklisted and even jailed.
On these occasions his orchestra, who were completely devoted to him, played without him,
placing a red carnation on the empty keyboard to mark his absence.
Following the maestro's death in 1995 that absence has now become permanent.
EMI Argentina draw the connection very elegantly with the particularly poignant cover photograph -
this time with the more appropriate rose -
on their commemorative album Ausencia (Absence).

There are a lot of Pugliese discs available, but look closely and most have (albeit minor) drawbacks:
the transfers are poor, or there's no balance between the instrumentals and the sung tangos,
or between the early and late periods, or you don't get La Yumba.
Ausencia suffers from none of these defects.
It is the only one to give a good representation of his entire oeuvre.
Chanel'sRondando tu esquina,
Morán'sPasionál,
Maciel'sCascabelito
- all his great singers are here.
The great late instrumentals, too:
Nochero soy, Emancipación, La mariposa.
And finally, his defining work,
La yumba.
Other discs claim to have it, but this is the only one with the immortal
1946 recording.

There is a lot of great Pugliese which is not on this disc, but there is nothing on this disc which is not great Pugliese.
Pura emoción.

our price: £12

Track list

Farol

Mala junta

Recuerdo

Rondando tu esquina

Fuimos

La yumba

Puente Alsina

Pasional

Chiqué

San José De Flores

Desvelo

Emancipación

Antiguo reloj de cobre

Cascabelito

Remembranzas

Nochero soy

La mariposa

La beba

Arrabal

Desde el alma vals

Cantan

Roberto Chanel (1,4,5)

Jorge Vidal (7

Alberto Morán (8,10,11)

Miguel Montero (13)

Jorge Maciel (14,15)

Aníbal Troilo - Yo Soy El Tango

BMG 659436

This is musical history in the making.
The combination of the brilliant Troilo sound with the voice of Francisco Fiorentino,
the first time that the singer had been fully integrated within the orchestra, is a powerful one.

RCA Victor originally reprinted Troilo's complete recordings over 26 lps in 1959.
El Bandoneón reprinted the first lp (more or less) as their first CD, El Bandoneón (EBCD-1) in 1991.

Then in 1995 RCA made a new collectors series on CD, reprinting the LPs over 16 CDs.
This was a good series for collectors, with sleeve notes from Oscar del Priore and complete discographic information.

In 2004 RCA discontinued that series and made a new edition.
They went back to the original LP covers - infinitely more attractive than the previous ones - but printed one LP on each CD.
This means that there are now 26 cds now instead of 16.
This is a real frustration for the collectors who want to collect the whole set,
but for the rest of us these CDs are much more enjoyable to own.
Pop the CD in your computer and you'll find some multimedia features:
all the lyrics, as well as photographs and newspaper cuttings on Troilo's career.

Now for the music.
In general it is well nigh impossible to pick out particular tracks as every one of these cuts is a classic
but my own favourites would be
Tabernero, Cachirulo
and the gut-wrenching
Te Aconsejo Que Me Olvides (I Advise You To Forget Me).

our price: £12

Track list

Yo soy el tango

Toda mi vida

Con todo la voz que tengo milonga

El bulín de la calle Ayacucho

En esta tarde gris

Mano brava milonga

Milongueando en el '40

Tabernero

Una carta

Total, pa' que sirvo

Cachirulo

Te aconsejo que me olvides

Cordón de oro

El cuarteador

Guapeando

Maragata

Pájaro ciego

Canta:

Fiorentino (1-6,8-10,12-14,16,17)

dúo Fiorentino-Mandarino (17)

Juan D'Arienzo - De Pura Cepa (1935-1936)

BMG 669330

With his irresistible compás, Juan D'Arienzo quite literally propelled five million people
to their feet, bringing about a revolution in the social and cultural fabric of his country.
It's an astonishing achievement.

BMG have deleted the wonderful D'Arienzo album on Solo Tango (although we still have a few copies)
and so we're now recommending this album, the first in BMG's wonderful 15 cd Homenage a Juan D'Arienzo.

It's a brilliant album with 9 waltzes, including the hard to find Pabellón de las rosas, and two milongas amongst its twenty tracks.
Superb sleeve notes inform you, for instance, that Lidio Fasoli is the pianist for the first five tracks, with Rodolfo Biagi joining for the recording date of 31st December 1935 that produced 9 de julio and Orillas del plata.
Listen yourself for the change in style.

Criticisms? Early D'Arienzo is just so good, I would loved to have seen every track from this period, but that's hardly a criticism.
The sleeve notes are only in Spanish.